


how many hail mary's

by alchemystique



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 15:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15221726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemystique/pseuds/alchemystique
Summary: She doesn’t remember all of it. Looking back on it now she remembers the weight of Beth in her arms, the shock of how strong Beth’s arms around her were, the way her hair tasted in Maggie’s mouth when she took in a ragged breath and half swallowed Beth’s ponytail. She remembers the vague echo of Rick’s soft exclamation somewhere behind her, and the way, once she’d finally let go of her sister, that Daryl an Beth had crowded around Carol - Daryl’s forehead tucked into Carol’s shoulder, Beth’s arm curled around Carols other side as Judith reached for lock of Beth’s hair and tugged, the brilliant tinkle of laughter and the way Beth’s hand and Daryl’s both curled around Judy’s little head, palms stacked one over the other as their fingers slipped through the wisps of hair. - Maggie meets Beth and Daryl on the road to Alexandria





	how many hail mary's

**Author's Note:**

> So I’m still very much not okay with what happened to twd and I’ve spent three weeks mulling this fic over in my head but there’s one specific line in here that made me start writing and then I couldn’t stop until I had the whole thing. bethyl fic, set in the fake season five in my head where beth and daryl never got separated and team family still found each other again, somehow. entirely maggie pov because that’s the way this wanted to be written

There’s not much Maggie finds truly beautiful in the world anymore. It’s, for the most part, hard and sad, fighting for your life more hours of the day than not, and the worst part is that’s before people are involved in the equation. People tend to be the worst part, most of the time. 

But today is a good day. Today is a good day because the group hasn’t run into a single walker since the sun rose, and the breeze settling over them is refreshing as the sun bears down on them, and Judith is quiet, tucked against Carol’s chest as they walk. 

The man they’d met the night before walks ahead of them, speaking to Michonne in a low voice Maggie can’t quite catch, but Michonne’s shoulders are relaxed, and she hasn’t reached for the hilt of her weapon in a few miles. She can’t help but feel hopeful. A place to live, a place to _have a life_ , it all feels so distant, but she wants it. She wants to do more than just survive.

Maggie increases her pace to catch up with Michonne, finds something soothing in the way Aaron doesn’t waver as he continues speaking. 

“...out hunting. They’re very private, but I’ve never met better judges of character. They’ll like you, I think.”  


“No need to butter us up. Still not sure we’re planning to stay.”  


“Fair,” he says, glancing behind at the group. They’ve been on the road too long - they look harried, and dirty, and probably like the kind of people you shouldn’t trust to waltz into a community, most of whom have been behind walls since the end of the damn world. Maggie can’t say for sure, but there’s a look in Rick’s eye she doesn’t particularly care for, one that tells her Aaron shouldn’t trust him as much as he seems to.  


It could all be a ruse, of course. Aaron could be leading them to the slaughter, just another harbinger of death like those signs on the train tracks had been all those months ago. There are times when Maggie is so angry they’d never found Daryl, thinks that maybe Daryl is the only one who could get through to Rick, that maybe Daryl is the only one who’d be able to tell for sure what they were headed towards. 

It’s a beautiful day, and there’s hope in her heart, and maybe that tells her all she needs to know. 

Her muscles tighten at the tinny whistle that drifts from the woods on her right, and as Aaron’s head turns towards the treeline she can feel the group tense, reaching for their weapons as a unit. Hope and trust are hard, these days.

“That’ll be them,” he says, and there’s something in his voice that makes Maggie pause. It’s subtle, the way his eyes crinkle at the corners, the way he says it like it’s a sigh of relief. “Hopefully they got something other than squirrel. Everyone in Alexandria is too squeamish to eat it.”  


Maggie’s heart squeezes, just a bit. They’d eaten worse than squirrel, in their time. It was practically a delicacy, those long months on the road before the prison, they’d licked bones clean and then chewed on them just to savor the taste, to fill their stomachs and their minds with something more than the gnawing starvation and the dismal future ahead of them.

The feeling in her chest doesn’t go away as the pair of hunters Aaron had been speaking of slide through the trees, their tread almost silent. If anything, the feeling steals her breath away, tightens even more at the sight of a head of blonde hair, ponytail bobbing out behind her, crossbow slung over her shoulder and a string of rabbits tied to her belt right next to a knife as long as her forearm.

“ _Beth_.”  


It comes out as a whisper, a prayer almost, and Maggie stumbles, loses her footing on the flat ground in front of her. Michonne catches her elbow, keeps her standing, but her grip on the katana at her back has fallen loose and she too stops in her tracks. The sounds of tread behind Maggie pause, too.

It’s like looking into a daydream - Daryl’s there, just behind Beth’s shoulder, and to look at him she’d be hard pressed to think of a time when she’s seen him look like _that_. 

Happy. 

There’s not a smile on his face, but there’s a crinkle around his eyes that has nothing to do with the sun on his face, a set to his shoulders Maggie’s never seen before, like he’s comfortable in his own skin for the first time in his life. 

“Took y’all long enough,” he says, like it’s a joke, like he’s just been waiting on them to catch up, but there’s a catch in his voice to match Maggie’s stumble, and Maggie lets out a strangled bark of laughter that’s swallowed up in Beth’s embrace a moment later.   


She doesn’t remember all of it. Looking back on it now she remembers the weight of Beth in her arms, the shock of how strong Beth’s own arms around her were, the way her hair tasted in Maggie’s mouth when she took in a ragged breath and half swallowed Beth’s ponytail. She remembers the vague echo of Rick’s soft exclamation somewhere behind her, and the way, once she’d finally let go of her sister, that Daryl and Beth had crowded around Carol - Daryl’s forehead tucked into Carol’s shoulder, Beth’s arm curled around Carols other side as Judith reached for a lock of Beth’s hair and tugged, the brilliant tinkle of laughter and the way Beth’s hand and Daryl’s both curled around Judy’s little head, palms stacked one over the other as their fingers slipped through the wisps of hair. 

She remembers the way Glenn had lifted Beth clean off her feet, grunting in surprise at the weight of her, as Maggie had made to greet Daryl with a nod and a smile and instead found herself, just for a moment, wrapped in his own embrace. 

Hope. She’d felt it, walking down the road, listening to Aaron’s voice, comforted by the set of his shoulders - and for once, the world hadn’t laughed in her face.

\------

She can’t stop watching them. Daryl and Beth. She’s tried so damn hard to pay attention to these people that have invited them behind their walls, tried so damn hard to get a sense of who they are, but ever since she left Deanna’s strange little therapy session and found them tucked shoulder to shoulder, leaning against the fence post and speaking in quiet voices, heads tilted close together, she can’t stop _watching_ them, in particular.

She gets it. In the small snippets of stories they’ve been able to tell in the mad rush since finding each other again, she knows they’d been on their own, stuck together without a way to even begin looking for the rest of the group. The guilt nearly swallows her whole, when she thinks on it - since the bus, she’d lost all hope of ever seeing Beth again and she hates herself for it, hates the fact that she’s mourned her sister the same as she had Daddy, but she’d never once stopped to consider that she might have made it. It hurt less, she supposes. To think that Beth was in a better place, to think she didn’t have to fight anymore.

Maggie’s not sure she ever even knew her sister, though. Not like she should have. Maggie still remembers the dead eyed look in Beth’s eye after she took mirror shards to her wrist, she still remembers the girl who cried the first time she watched an animal die on Daddy’s table. She hadn’t paid enough attention to the girl who’d survived the winter on the road, the girl who never complained, the girl who’d stabbed walkers through the fence same as everyone else. Who still sang, behind those prison walls, and still smiled and laughed and _lived._

She hasn’t known her sister in a long time, but god, does she want to. She wants to know this woman who Deanna had spoken of with no small amount of respect, who Aaron had only been half kidding about when he told Michonne would be the first person he wanted at his back in a fight. 

She wants to know about the woman who survived the long trek to get here, how she did it, and what it cost her. Maybe what she gained, too.

Daryl and Beth don’t move from their spot tucked together against the fence post, even though she knows they can hear her tread down the surprisingly well maintained sidewalk - their heads turn as one to glance at her, and when she gets a good look at them she can see Beth’s eyes are a bit red. 

She hadn’t cried, earlier. Hadn’t shed a single tear even as Maggie sobbed in her ear, and Maggie hadn’t really noticed it, but she does now, as Daryl presses his shoulder into Beth’s and Beth drops her gaze for just a moment, pressing back.

“Don’t think Rick wants to stay,” Daryl intones, softly, his gaze dropping to the leaf she can tell by the debris at his feet he’s been shredding between his fingers.   


“Rick’s only one man,” she tells him, dropping to lean against the post next to Beth, and Daryl grunts, like he’s slightly surprised to hear that. She’s quiet, for a moment. She’d been the first to go in with Deanna, and everyone else is still tucked into the living room of her house, waiting. It strikes her that Daryl and Beth hadn’t gone in with them. “Why’d you stay?”

Daryl shrugs, the leaf in his hands twisting round and round until it’s nothing more than mulch. It’s Beth that squints across the street, who spans her gaze out at the row of tidy houses and opens her mouth to speak. “Didn’t want to, at first. When Aaron found us we were doin’ just fine, and these people are...” she pauses, bites her lip. “They’re soft. Most of em don’t know what it’s like, out there. Don’t know how to fight or shoot or hunt. Don’t know what it’s like to have to...” Beth takes in a deep, shuddering breath, and Maggie can see the way Daryl’s shoulders tense, and she can guess, what that means. Deanna’d asked them if she’d killed before, and now Maggie wonders whether or not Beth had told the truth, when she’d first spoken into the damn camera. “At first we were just gonna rest a day or two, keep going. Aaron talked us out of it, and then we said ‘another week and then we’re gone’ and then we just...kept sayin’ it for a while. Til we stopped sayin’ it.” She gets a sly grin on her face, glancing up at Maggie then. “’Sides, Daryl can’t get enough’a his showers. Likes to smell pretty.”

Daryl grunts, kicks at her boot where it’s dangling, one ankle crossed over the other. “Stop.”

There’s a joke there she’s missing, she’s sure of it, but Maggie barely pays it any mind because she’s completely focused on one word. She suddenly feels the grit and grime of months on the road tenfold, gets the urge to itch at her skin. “Shower?”

Beth nods, still playing a game of footsie with Daryl - knocking her boot back against his own as she fights down a grin. “Hot water too,” Daryl intones, dropping his mulched leaf now to flick a finger against Beth’s side, and they settle back in, a little closer than before now. 

“We live with Aaron and Eric,” Beth says, and for a moment Maggie’s sure her ears go a bit red. “Seemed a waste to have a place all to ourselves, but I bet you’ll get the house on the corner. There’s two of ‘em, right next to each other, probably have enough rooms so no one has to share.” Beth pauses. “‘less they want to.” 

Daryl does something weird with his face, blows out a huff of breath, and reaches back behind him to grab at the bush there, coming back with another handful of leaves to shred. 

“’f you don’t wanna wait, we could go now. Plenty of water to spare.” 

Maggie takes a glance back at the house, feels the pull to go back to them - safety in numbers, and all - but the desire to be clean and the knowledge that Beth and Daryl are comfortable here outweighs her fight or flight, and she’s a bit curious, now. About the house Beth shares, and the weight of her sisters gaze on Daryl’s hands as he destroys more foliage. She nods.

Beth pushes up off the fence, and there’s something startlingly familiar about the way she holds herself as she leans down to grab the crossbow at her feet - there’s a lithe grace about her that Maggie doesn’t remember, the way her muscles slide against her skin that tells Maggie her sister knows how to use every damn one of them, nothing of the old fawn-like Beth from before. 

“I’ll stay. Make sure everyone knows where ya went.”  


Beth shoots him a soft smile, pulls the strap over her head, and curls her hand around Maggie’s elbow to lead her away. 

\------

Beth’s house is neat and orderly. The living room has a couch and a loveseat, a little worn but still comfortable looking, and there are books on each end table - one has a bookmark tucked about halfway through, another is dogeared, the third is open on the table, binding stretched thin. She takes a moment to picture it - Aaron on the coach, tucking a stray piece of paper into his page before he goes to sleep, sighing at the mistreatment of his books as the as-yet unknown Eric leaves his propped open and Beth folds the corner of her page to mark her place. It had driven Maggie and Daddy crazy, the way Beth was so particular about everything else but could never read a single book she didn’t half-destroy.

There are pictures, on the walls - just a few, but they’re there, pictures of Aaron with his arms wrapped around the shoulders of a slight looking man, a picture of the other man by himself, giving a familiar ‘just take the damn picture’ look. There’s one of Beth, tucked into a simple frame close to the end of the hall, her shoulders hunched, neck tilted up like she’d been just glancing up - her hair down around her shoulders like Maggie hasn’t seen in years, soft and floating around her like a halo, a small smile curling her lip. 

None of Daryl, which wasn’t particularly surprising, til she gets to the very end of the hall, following Beth’s silent tread, and sees the last one. It’d been taken from behind, and likely without the knowledge of the pair. Tucked next to each other, out on the porch Maggie’d just passed, Beth looked slight compared to Daryl, with his broad back covered by the wings on his vest. 

It steals her breath away, and she has to stop in her tracks to take a closer look. They’re not doing anything much, Maggie can tell, but they’re lit from behind, like whoever had taken the picture had opened a door and let the light from inside bathe them. Close but not quite touching, Beth’s got her gaze on the stars, head tilted up, long neck extended, her arms wrapped around the porch rail, her legs dangling off the end. 

Daryl’s got his gaze fixed firmly on Beth. Head turned to his left and slightly down, he’s got a look on his face that Maggie doesn’t know how to name, and the fingers of his left hand are sifting through the ends of Beth’s hair. 

“That one’s my favorite,” Beth tells her, startling Maggie, and she smiles. “Took Eric three weeks to get a picture of him. ‘s a nice picture though.”  


“Surprised Daryl didn’t rip it up, if he didn’t want his picture taken.”  


Beth tilts her head, a finger sliding along the edge of the frame. “He didn’t mind so much, when he saw it.”

It’s a lot to take in. They’ve built a life since the prison, Daryl and Beth. They’ve done more than just survive. She wants to ask. She wants desperately to ask Beth what they are to each other, what kind of life it is they’ve made here, but it feels like too much to ask, a definition of the kind of partnership they must’ve had to make it so far on their own. For all she knows it’s nothing but that, but the look on Daryl’s face in that picture, the way she’d teased him earlier and the way he hadn’t curled in on himself and been reticent in the face of her joke...

Beth slides into the room at the far end of the hallway and Maggie leans into the doorway, eyes sliding over the neatly made bed and the dresser set against the wall - a table on either end of the bed, an empty water glass on each side. A bible on the left side of the bed with a journal propped on top of it, another book with a bookmark tucked into it on the right.

It’s a shared space, Maggie knows, can tell by the way Beth drifts through it, and there’s a part of her that wonders if she should be upset about it - worried, even, but even before the picture in the hall, even before she saw the way Beth and Daryl looked tucked against each other on that fence post, she doesn’t think she would have had the heart to judge her sister, or the man that seems to have taken a significant spot in her sisters life. And Beth doesn’t seem to notice or care that Maggie’s fitting the pieces of it together, humming softly under her breath as she digs through a drawer of clothes, a towel tucked under her arm as she sifts through boxers and panties alike in search of whatever it is she’s trying to find. 

“You still sing?”  


Beth pauses in her search, glancing up at Maggie, and Maggie realizes it sounds a bit accusatory, like Maggie’s surprised there’s a reason to do such a thing in this world anymore.

“I didn’t mean --.”  


Beth tilts her head and smiles, and there’s a secret meaning behind the look, something Maggie doesn’t know, maybe never will. “When I can. It’s...” Beth’s eyes land on something perched atop the dresser, a small silver spoon that Maggie thinks has some sort of inscription on it. “There’s still some beauty left in the world.”

Maggie shakes with sobs in the shower, the hot water scalding her skin, the water at her feet slowly going from brown to clear as she scrubs at herself. It hits her hard - the mourning she’s tried to put off, the fear she’d used to fight, the despair she’d felt at the world in general, all of it washed away for just a moment under the spray of the water and her sisters words. It’ll be back, Maggie knows - it has to come back, because without her anger and without her sorrow she doesn’t know anymore how to fight, but she thinks this time maybe she’ll borrow some of Beth’s courage, too, to see the world for what it is and still find something beautiful in it.

She hopes she can do the same.

\------

There is laughter around the room. They’ve long since given up trying to pour the wine Aaron had offered them with a wink and a finger against his lips, like he was passing off contraband; they hand the two bottles back and forth between them all, even giving Carl a taste, and a look passes between Carol, Rick and Daryl when Carl makes a face at it - another look passing when he goes back in for a second swig.

Maggie feels warm and full - full of laughter, full of joy, full of wine and food and the reality that for a moment, their family is safe. Beth’d been right - they’d been offered two houses, just the ones she’d said, only a hop and a skip from Beth and Daryl, but they’d all hunkered down in the living room of the house Rick had claimed and Maggie didn’t imagine they’d leave the comfort of it, this first night.

Naturally, as the night gets heavier and they fill themselves with wine, there are lulls in the conversation, and they all sort of just stare at each other, at the roof over their heads and the pink of their cheeks from the showers and the alcohol, disbelieving and unsure. 

Glenn is tucked half-behind her, her back against his leg as she curls on the floor below his spot on the coach, one of his hands curled around the neck of the wine bottle and the other tapping out a rhythm against her shoulder. He hums when she curls a hand around his ankle, but his gaze is pulled across the room, same as hers, when Beth lets out a small laugh, bobbling the other bottle precariously between her fingers for a moment as Tara nearly drops it passing it to her. Beth’s all pink cheeks and smiles as she tries to keep it balanced, and she makes a small noise of protest when Daryl swoops in from behind her to grasp it. “Best not give her much more, she’ll try’n burn your house down.”  


Her gasp is exaggerated, whether by the wine or spurned on by the half-grin Daryl is sporting. “One time, and suddenly I’m a pyro!”

Daryl takes a swig off the bottle and settles his gaze on her. “It was twice, and don’t think I didn’t notice you stole my lighter last week.” There’s something in his look that’s fond, reminds her almost of the way the group had looked at Beth around the fire, that first night at the prison as her voice wavered across an old song, but it’s different, too - unwary, unafraid of the world and what was in it now, none of the quiet judgement they’d all passed on the young girl none of them had thought would survive the winter. Something that makes her think he’s drawing strength from the soft edges of her smile. He mouths the word “pyro” around the room, eyebrow raised, and Beth huffs.

“The second time don’t count,” she tells him, a finger pointed in his direction. “It was a trap, and we were savin’ people from getting caught in it. And I’m just tryin’ to prevent you dyin’ ‘a cancer in the middle of the damn apocalypse.”  


“Got matches that work just as good as a Zippo, woman.”  


They’re all a little too drunk, warm and comfortable and happy to be in each others company, to spend much time noticing the way Beth smacks at his knee or the way he grabs at her hand and curls his fingers into hers. Michonne shares a significant look with Maggie, eyebrows raised, but Maggie shrugs her shoulders and that’s the last of that. She hasn’t got room to judge any of them for finding a sliver of happiness in this world. 

In fits and starts they tell stories about their time apart - just snippets of the real truth, details put aside for another time, too happy to dwell on the terror and the pain of those they’ve lost along the way. 

When Carl’s eyes start to droop they slowly go about cleaning up after themselves, sliding around each other to set dishes in the sink, setting up camp in the living room like they would if they’d cleared a house on the road. Daryl and Beth say soft goodnights and slide out the front door, and it’s strange, to be reunited with them only to have them leave, but Maggie forces herself to remember that they’re just down the street, that this isn’t the same as it was, that she’ll see them both tomorrow and maybe they’ll be hungover just the same as she is. 

She’ll have time. 

\------

Glenn is giving his plate of eggs a mean glare, and Maggie’s downing water like she hasn’t had a drop in days, and the pounding headache behind her eyes seems to be getting worse. Michonne’s laughing at them across the room, bright eyed and looking like she’s never had a better sleep in her life, and Maggie thinks maybe she was the smart one, begging off the wine after half a glass of it, early in the night.

Beside her Glenn groans, and shakes his head like he’s clearing it. The rest of the house is quiet, this early in the morning with nowhere to go and nothing to do, and Maggie is thankful for it. The quiet is different than she’s used to, calm where before it was always so tense, and she tilts her head back, eyes closed to enjoy it for a while. Glenn breaks it a few minutes later, his words sounding like he’s had some sort of revelation.

“Beth and Daryl are doin’ it,” he mutters into his plate, and Maggie blinks her eyes open just in time to catch Michonne’s grin. “Like, I just wanna clear the air here, but we’re all agreed, right? Beth and Daryl are definitely doin’ it.”  


Maggie nods her head - slow, barely any tilt to her neck as she tries to avoid rattling her brains around. “Probably.”

“Do I have to have a shovel talk with Daryl? I don’t think I’m prepared to do that. What do I tell him?”  


Maggie pats his arm. “I think we’re well beyond that. C’mon, you really think it was _Daryl’s_ idea?”

Michonne shares a look with her over Glenn’s head. “May not have been his idea, but he’s sure got idea’s _now_.”

“Gross,” Glenn mutters through a mouthful of toast. “It’s actually kinda cute, honestly, but _gross_.”  


They settle in. Not without some convincing, but even Rick seems to settle once he realizes how entrenched in the community Daryl is. He’s gone a long time without having someone to ground him the way Daryl does, though Michonne does some of that work too. She catches them once, Rick and Daryl, having a quiet argument one night on the porch - she slinks into the shadows, tucks herself behind the corner of the house and listens to hushed whispers. It doesn’t take her long to figure out Daryl’s _pissed_.

“...been out there too fuckin’ long if you think you’re better off on the road. You got two kids and a family.”  


“These people are weak, Daryl.”  


“No shit. They also have food, and shelter, and a doctor. Could make somethin’ here. Be part of it. Go back to tendin’ fields ‘f you decide you’re not too high and mighty for it now. We ain’t leavin’. You wanna go, I can’t stop you, but you gotta know you’re gonna lose people if you do.”  


“We could take it.”  


There’s a long pause, and then a huff of breath. “You outta your goddamn mind? You wanna start that fight? Got enough walkers outside the walls, you want them in here too?”

“The walls won’t last, you know that. These people won’t make it, and they’ll just get in our way.”  


“So we teach ‘em. Done it before.”  


“And look how that turned out for us.”  


“You gonna tell me you regret having Hershel around? Maggie? Think we’re better off without em?”  


“Notice you didn’t mention Beth.”  


The silence is deafening, and even around the corner, unable to see his face, Maggie half expects Daryl to hit something. Maybe Rick. After a while, though, Daryl’s voice drifts across the porch. “She kept me alive out there, Rick. Only damn reason I’m here talkin’ to you. I can’t tell you what to do. Probably can’t stop you from stagin’ a damn coup, if you wanted to.” The porch creaks, like one of them is moving. “’s’more to it than just surviving, here. You don’t want it yourself, at least want it for that baby girl.”

“It’s not safe here.”  


“Ain’t safe anywhere. But it’s sure as shit better’n out there.” There’s a pause like Daryl’s gearing up to say something he’ll regret. “Sounding a hell of a lot like Shane. Don’t think you forgot what happened to him.”

Maggie sucks in a breath, holds it for a second. “Are you threatening me?”

“Fact you think I am just proves my point.”  


She’s glad she can’t see their faces. It feels a bit like she’d have to choose a side, if they knew she was there, and even though she an Glenn have already decided, she doesn’t know for sure how Rick would take it. How any of them would take it, if Rick decides he’s leavin’.

Footsteps echo off the porch, and Maggie listens to the door open and close, listens to the sounds of hands rifling against fabric, the flick of a lighter going off. 

“Know you’re there.”  


Maggie doesn’t bother to look bashful as she slinks around to the porch, nods at him as he takes a long pull off his cigarette. For a moment she has to fight the urge to ask if she can bum one off him. 

He’s got his back to the house, leaning against the riser at the top of the stairs, one leg bent out and the other curled up towards him, and Maggie plops down on the step above him. 

It weighs on her. She’d known Rick was restless here, unsure, but she hadn’t known how deep it went. How scared he was.

“See you got your lighter back,” she finally says, and his gaze glints in the moonlight as he turns to look at her. He flicks it open and closed a few times, the fidgeting familiar in a way that makes her desperately nostalgic. She remembers long nights in the tower, the metallic pinging against cold night air as he came to relieve her from watch, remembers him on the outskirts of their group, silently providing and then staying the hell away.

Remembers him having to take up the mantle when Rick dropped it, how he’d done it without complaint, ‘cause it had to be done. Remembers his voice mingling with her fathers, late nights with their heads bent together long after everyone else had gone to sleep.

“It bug you?” he asks, out of the blue, staring at the cigarette in his hands as the cherry burns closer and closer to the filter. He doesn’t take another drag. “Me ‘n Beth?”

Maggie tilts her head to look at him. He’s not gearing up for another fight - just curious, mostly, to know where he stands with the rest of the group. He seems to think he knows exactly where he stands with Rick.

“No,” she tells him, and reaches out a hand to pluck the cigarette from his fingers. He doesn’t flinch, which is a bit of a surprise, and she takes a long drag, tosses it to the ground to crush beneath her boot as she blows smoke through her nose, trying not to cough. 

Daryl hums, eyes squinting like he doesn’t quite believe her.

“Does it bug you that it doesn’t bug me?”

His gaze slides across the street, fingers curling around his knee to pick at the rip of his jeans. 

“Don’t make much sense, is all.” She opens her mouth, wanting him to clarify, but she’s not sure he knows exactly what he means either, so she fades into silence for a bit. “’S’why we stayed with Aaron.”

It takes her a second to catch his meaning - Aaron and Eric, the couple who lived by themselves, stayed out of everyone’s way and didn’t join in on the festivities, when they were had. She gets it. There’s a very clear age difference, a very distinct set of personalities, she can see why people might question it - might judge it. 

“It’s good you have each other,” she tells him, and she means it. Daryl grunts.

“Your daddy’d’a strung me up by my balls.”

She snorts out a laugh, nearly agrees with him, but it strikes her that he’s wrong. The prison seems far away - another life, really, but she remembers what they’d been building, the life they’d eked out, little by little.

Remembers Daddy’d let Beth go out on a run once, Beth straddling the bike behind Daryl, the wind in her hair as he took off, gun strapped to her hip. Beth had come back upset, mentioned offhand that she’d gotten distracted and done something stupid and she didn’t want anyone getting hurt because of her. And she’d never gone back out again, but Daddy never would’a trusted anyone but Daryl with that. 

She remembers nights she’d been wrapped up in Glenn, where Judy wouldn’t sleep for anything and Daddy and Daryl had been up talking about the fences, the water, the pigs, about Rick. How Daddy’d pat the seat beside him as Beth wandered by, how Daryl would silently take Judith for a bit while Beth leaned her head on Daddy’s shoulder, bone weary but happy to sing a song if Daddy asked.

Remembers the way Daddy’d pat his shoulder as Daryl shoved a second helping of dinner Beth’s way when she looked a little extra pale or tired. 

They’d shared something, just the three of them, like everyone had all shared different things between them when they had some semblance of home. 

“He’d’a been glad you two were looking out for each other,” she says softly, after a while, her throat tight and her eyes a little misty. “After he’d cleaned his shotgun in front of you a few times.”

He’s slightly in front of her, angled a little away, so it’s hard to see his expression but she thinks she hears a smile in his voice when he responds. “Damn man would’a known better’n that. He’d’ve thrown verses at me til I turned tail and ran.”

He turns to her at her startled laughter. She hasn’t talked about Daddy, hasn’t made the time until now, and it hurts, oh does it _hurt_ , but it’s good. It’s the kind of hurt that makes you groan in joy, like pulling and stretching out muscles sore from a long days work. The kind that reminds you you’re alive.

“Don’t think you could run from Beth if you tried.”

He catches her gaze and holds it for a long moment before he ducks away. “Did try. Once.” His fingers twirl at a loose string at his knee. “Didn’t stick.”

She bites her lip to hide the smile, doesn’t want to ruin this moment or make him uncomfortable, but as the quiet continues he doesn’t squirm or close in on himself at the confession, and she can’t help but tease him at least a little. 

“Glenn thinks it’s cute.”

“Ain’t _cute_ ,” he murmurs, resentful, but there’s no fire behind it. He seems to want to say more, doesn’t know how to phrase it, so she lets him mull over it. “Ain’t like you and him.”

She knows what he means, even if maybe he doesn’t. In the week they’ve been here it’s not like there’s been much to go on, other than knowing Daryl well enough to understand the soft, casual touches he gives Beth, and the gruff way he lets her tease him are very much out of the ordinary. 

They don’t kiss goodbye, or hold hands just because, at least not while anyone’s watching - but when they go out beyond the walls Daryl doesn’t question who’s got his back, and Beth’s so damn good with that bow (the bow Maggie found out they’d nearly died for, some months back, out on the road by themselves) that there’s no way in hell she didn’t learn from the master himself. And maybe in the scheme of things that doesn’t seem like a lot, but Daryl smiles sometimes, when he thinks no ones looking, and that’s more than enough.

Eugene keeps calling them _roommates_ , to Glenn’s absolute delight, and on more than one occasion has driven him to actual tears as he tries not to laugh, mouthing ‘roommates’ at anyone he can manage to hold direct eye contact with.   


They’re not Maggie and Glenn. But what they have is just as deep, just as solid, just as important, and she thinks maybe Daryl doesn’t quite know that, yet. 

He will though. If Maggie knows anything about Beth at all, he will - even if she’s got to smack him upside the head with it a few times.

\------

She doesn’t mean to hear it. She doesn’t. 

It’s just after that run last week, when Beth and Daryl came back covered in walker guts and down a man, the two of them haven’t spoken a word to each other, and both of them have been ornery as all hell. Beth’s spent the last two nights on their couch, but from what Aaron’s said it wouldn’t matter, because he hasn’t seen Daryl enter the house in a week. 

All she wants to do is check in with Beth, make sure she’s alright after she tore out of the house lookin’ like she was gonna kill something. Maybe Daryl. 

She knocks on the door to the house but doesn’t get a response, and rounds to the side of it when she hears something clatter against the fence in the back yard. She ducks out of sight when something smashes to the ground, instantly on high alert, wondering how a walker got in, but instead she’s met with the sight of Beth throwing a glass against the pavement. From the look of the ground it’s not the first thing she’s thrown. 

“You wanna throw shit, fine! I’ll throw shit too! What the hell is your problem?”  


Shit. This is absolutely the wrong place to be, but if Maggie moves a muscle one of them is gonna see her, and she really, truly does not want that to happen. 

“The hell is _my_ problem? The hell is your problem, running around like you’re goddamn invincible? I ask you to stay outside for one damn second and you gotta come in guns blazing and get yourself this close to dead!”  


“I saved your life, you ungrateful dick!”  


This is a very serious argument, but Maggie has to bite back laughter. She doesn’t think there’s anyone else in the world who could yell at Daryl like that. Can’t believe it’s Beth who gets to.

“Saved my - saved my life, yeah! Saved my _ungrateful_ ass and you almost got bit for it. Who asked you to save it anyway?”  


“I did! I asked myself to do it, and I did it, ‘cause guess what, Daryl, I give two shits whether you live or die!”  


He snarls, turns to kick at a potted plant that tips over and crashes to the ground. 

“What the hell is wrong with that, anyway?”  


He doesn’t say a word, pacing like a caged animal, and there’s a part of Maggie that wants to interject, at this point, wants to slide in between them and stop this whole mess, but Daryl wouldn’t hurt her. Not Beth.

“You been shuttin’ me out all week, Daryl, so you better start talking or -.”  


“Or what? Or _what_ , Beth? Huh? What’re you gonna do? Go get nearly bit, again, ‘cause there ain’t nothin’ worse you could do to me, so have at it. Go!”  


Beth blinks, realizes the same second as Maggie exactly what Daryl’s so torn up about. 

“Go on, girl, get! _Last man standing_ , right?” He snarls it, right up in her face, arms waving and face contorted in a mix and anguish and rage. “Might as well get it over with, save me the hassle’a having to dig your damn grave myself! Got a whole family here to do it now, but you wait too long and they’ll all be gone too!”  


“Daryl -.”  


“Nah! Forget this shit! You wanna die so much, you don’t even gotta go back out - got a nice knife right there on your belt. Bet it cuts better than a glass fuckin’ shard.”  


“Hey! You don’t get to throw shit in my face just ‘cause you’re afraid! And I ain’t gonna let you push me away either!”

“You think you got any say in what I do?”

“Yeah, dumbass, I think I do. I think I got every say, cause I love you and you owe me that!”

He deflates. Shoulders in, head low, he doesn’t fight it when Beth takes a step towards him and presses her forehead against his. “Ain’t gonna say it,” he tells her, voice soft enough that Maggie barely catches it. Beth shakes her head, presses her hand to his chest, right over his heart, and Maggie should leave, she should leave _right now_ , but she’s frozen to the spot. 

She’s never seen either one of them like this, doesn’t know what to do with it, but she can’t look away either. She’d known they cared about each other, known they’d watched out for one another, known they trusted each other but...  


But Daryl looks absolutely gutted by the mere thought of losing Beth, had lashed out because of it, tried to pull away, and she remembers the way he’d looked at her before he told her he’d tried to run away before. _Didn’t stick_ , he’d said.

She gets why, now. Because Beth has lived a lot of her life on the sidelines, and this is so far from that she hardly recognizes her sister. 

“New deal,” Beth says, soft and low as she blinks her eyes open to catch Daryl’s gaze. He doesn’t back away from it. “You go first.”

He hums, like he doesn’t really understand.

“I’m not kiddin’, Daryl. I bury you, not the other way around. Got it?”  


“Gonna take a lot ta outlive the last man standing.”

“Then we’ll both live forever.”  


It’s such a ridiculous thing to say, it’s such a _corny_ thing to say, but for a second she stares at them and she believes Beth. For a second Daryl does too, the last of the tension dropping out of his shoulders as he moves to wrap an arm around her waist. 

Maggie is definitely, for sure leaving, only Beth shoves at his shoulder, backs up half a step to hold out her hand. “Shake on it.”

“You fuckin’ kidding me?”  


“You go first or we both live forever. Don’t make me spit in my hand, Daryl, I’ll do it.”  


“This is the stupidest fuckin’ thing you ever done, Greene, and I’m including the time we almost died for peach snapps.”  


“Shake my hand, Daryl Dixon.”  


He does, is the thing. Rolls his eyes and grunts, but he reaches out and clasps her hand and pumps his arm twice before he drops it. “Happy now?”

“Kinda wanna burn something down, so I’d say yes.”  


He gives her a wry little smile, reaches over to cuff her ear, drags her sideways to press a kiss into her hair. “You done?”

“I dunno. I can think of some other things you been doin’ lately to piss me off.”  


“So nothin’ new, then.”  


Beth laughs into his neck. “Eric’s gonna be so mad you kicked over his hydrangea.”

“It was lookin’ at me funny. ‘sides, it was you who threw his favorite mug against a wall.”  


They’re half turned away from her, now, so Maggie backs away, trying to make as little noise as possible as she leaves them to figure the rest of their shit out, and she power walks the rest of the way home in hopes they don’t slide around the corner and see her. 

She doesn’t tell Glenn about it. Doesn’t tell anyone, and she’s not sure she could explain what she saw anyway, but it feels like a secret she has to keep for them. They all live in this world, they all know how unlikely it is they’ll all be around in a week, a month, a year. You lose people - it just happens, and you try to enjoy what time you have with them.

There’s only a few things people try not to promise each other, and Beth just slid right on over that line in the sand - kicked at it on her way through. They’re not Maggie and Glenn, that’s for damn sure. They’re something else entirely.  

Beth’s stronger than Maggie’s ever been, she thinks later that night, as she curls around Glenn and tries to convince herself she’d be okay outliving him.

\------

“I know you saw us,” Beth tells her two days later, as they’re picking through moth eaten jackets in a corner store in town. Maggie rolls her jaw, tries to imagine what Beth’s face would look like if she said ‘saw who’.  


Doesn’t bother with it, in the end. 

“He’s a mess, huh?”  


Beth shoots her a small smile. “He told me you thought Daddy’d approve. Don’t think he meant to tell me, but... it meant a lot to him.”

They don’t say much more about it, too busy delighting in the stash of untouched tampons they find hidden in the backroom, stuffing boxes and boxes of them into their bags, and Beth raises a brow when Maggie leaves the condoms where they are. “They’re all expired anyway,” she tells Beth, and Beth’s ears go red. 

“I know that.”  


But Maggie doesn’t leave them behind because they probably don’t work anymore. She tells Beth, later that night, tucked together on the couch, and Beth smiles and squeezes her hand, presses her face into Maggie’s shoulder and squeals, like they’re kids again. 

There’s so much about this world that makes Maggie sure happiness is a pipe dream, but then... Then there are other things, things that remind her that there’s life still to live. Life to _give_. She wants that. Needs it, though she can’t really say why, just. There’s so many reasons to lose hope, and she wants a reason to hold onto it.

Glenn catches her eye across the room, darts his gaze to Beth, questioning, and Maggie gives him a nod. They’ll tell everyone else. They’ll have to. But for this one moment she gets to share a secret with her sister again, and she wants to hold on to that feeling. 

There’s laughter ringing in her ears, and the soft light casts her wild family in a warm glow, and when Daryl nudges Beth’s knee with his foot, eyes still on the book he’s been reading all night - pristine condition with a small strip of paper marking his page (and is it Aaron or Eric who can’t take care of a damn book, she wonders? Maybe she’ll ask Daryl and he’ll go off about it like Daddy’d used to), and asks her to sing, Beth nudges Maggie’s shoulder with her own. 

Maggie raises a brow - Beth’d always had the better voice, and Maggie’d only ever done it to make Daddy smile, but Beth nudges her again. “Ain’t no jukebox,” she says, voice low like she’s mocking someone, and Daryl swats at her with the book, goes back to reading it. 

Maggie shrugs, finally, feels the build up to it as Beth runs through the catalog of songs in her head. She settles on one, finally hums out a few chords until Maggie catches the tune, and she smiles, her voice wobbling over the words as Beth sings beside her, bright and clear. 

 __Oh Lord, Oh Lord, what have I done?  
I’ve fallen in love with a man on the run  
Oh Lord, Oh Lord, I’m begging you please  
Don’t take that sinner from me  
Oh don’t take that sinner from me  


By the time they’re done with the song, Glenn has gone from breathless laughter to mild awe that Daryl hasn’t stormed from the room, and when Daryl awkwardly clears his throat and stands to press a kiss on the crown of Beth’s head the whole room pretends to be very interested in the wallpaper. 

“Y’all can shut the hell up,” he mutters, but he curls back up on his chair next to them and turns his head back to his book all the same.  



End file.
